Madeira Film Festival: On the Road in New Bedford

Tuesday, July 296:00 p.m. Reception7:30 p.m. Screening

The Madeira Film Festival, in collaboration with PALCUS, will present an evening of short, Portuguese films from the Azores, Madeira and mainland Portugal. The evening will feature 10 short films. Two of the films are from Madeira, “De Mim” and the “Tree of Pan”; two from the Azores, “Ser Ilhéu” and “Adormecido” and the other six films are from mainland Portugal. All films will either be shown in English or have English subtitles.

This is a free event and is sponsored in part by Madeira Wine, the official drink of the Madeira Film Festival.

Screening Schedule

Part One

7:30 p.m. “Postcards from Lisbon” a film by Pedro Resende

7:34 p.m. “The Tree of Pan” a film by Aitken Pearson

7:48 p.m. “A Ria, A Água e o Homem” a film by Manuel Matos Barbosa

7:53 p.m. “Ser Ilhéu” a film by Francisco Rosas

8:13 p.m. “pt.es” a film by Pedro Sena Lino

Part Two

9:00 p.m. “De Mim” a film by Carlos Melim

9:06 p.m. “Adormecido” a film by Paulo Abreu

9:18 p.m. “Quatro horas descalço” a film by Ico Costa

9:33 p.m. “Imaculado’ a film by Gonçalo Waddington !

9:50 p.m. “Plutão” a film by Jorge Jácome

About the Films and Directors

“Postcards from Lisbon” from Pedro Resende will open the screenings. Pedro Miguel Resende is a Portuguese Filmmaker, born and raised in Lisbon. He started his career working in public relations and strategic communication until he discovered himself as a storyteller. He travelled extensively across Europe, worked in Ljubljana and Berlin. Currently he spends most of his time between Austin and Lisbon developing scripts and projects that he believes are worth telling. Through his film for the Asia-Europe Short Films Contest, he shared a story about his city, Lisbon. It is expressed from an outsider’s perspective who is seeing and experiencing it. However his film is not just about a Mongolian young struggling migrant living in Lisbon but about all those migrants who travel places with completely different cultures, facing the fears, hopes, dreams and all the awe that comes with it.

“The Tree of Pan” from director Aitken Pearson was shot in Santana Madeira Biosphere Reserve. It is a short, unclassifiable film without dialogue yet with a compelling narrative dependent on music, poetry & visuals. Two souls find refuge in each other after being lured by the mythic Greek God Pan into a mysterious tree and are reborn into nature. Aitken Pearson is also the writer, director, and producer of the award winning feature documentary “Cangleska Wakan” which addresses the concept of the ‘Sacred Hoop’ of the Sioux Lakota. The film was shot in South Dakota on various Indian Reservations. The film has been accepted into over thirty film festivals worldwide receiving numerous accolades including best documentary at Red Nation Film Festival in Los Angeles; Native Spirit Award at Southern Winds Film Festival, Oklahoma; and finalist in ‘A Film For Peace’ Italy.

“A Ria, A Água, O Homem” from Manuel Matos Barbosa is an animated piece where black and white draw the three elements, animating ordinary things in a poetic sense of the image. Matos Barbosa was born on 11 May 1935. A cineclub member, he was part of the group who initiated the creative movement of the current FPCA (Portuguese Federation of Film and Audiovisuals), of whose management bodies he was also a member. He was one of the Portuguese delegations at UNICA in Ostend, Belgium; Cologne, Germany and Saint Nazaire, France. He has been a jury member at several national and international festivals. In 1984 and 2005 he was president of the CINANIMA Jury. With extensive filmography, (made up of animation works and documentaries), his films won prizes in Germany, Andorra, Angola, Austria, Belgium, Spain, France, Italy, Mozambique, Portugal and Rhodesia. He is the author of “We’re Doing Alright”, one of the most important documentaries in Portuguese cinema. Between 2008 and 2010, he returns to film directing to direct this short animated film about stories by Raúl Brandão and voiced by Joaquim de Almeida with the support of ICA/Ministry of Culture and RTP.

“Ser Ilhéu” from the Azorean filmmaker Francisco Rosas, tells the story of the daily life of a women lost in time and abandoned in her land. Reviewing the exodus of everyone in that place brings her to peace and communion with the island. This is a short film portraying actress Laura Lobão, a journalist from RTP Azores who also has countless experience in theatre and cinema. The script won a national contest organised by the Azores Film Commission. Francisco Rosas also directed the film “Quimera”.

In the film “pt.es” by documentary filmmaker Pedro Sena Nunes, there is a crescent count until the demystification of a bridge that connects and separates one country from another. Portugal and Spain, distant by fragments of their memories, images, objects, voices and ruins. Time runs out. An anxiety floats above the border and also a strength of believing that it is possible to change some things until the very last minute of our cross-over. In a world of contradictions, inequalities remain, existing surprising stories in almost forgotten lands. We are standing before a jigsaw puzzle organized into a map of ideas and memories. Pedro Sena Nunes is a prolific and engaging film director, screen writer, producer and photographer. Based in his native Lisbon, his short films and documentary videos have gained him recognition and numerous awards in film festivals both nationally and around Europe. Portugal has been the subject for several of his works, with documentaries on little known areas of the country and its people, as well as two short fiction films which make stars of the charismatic and quirky public transport vehicles of Lisbon.

Part two of the evening starts with the Madeiran filmmaker Carlos Melim. His film “De mim" accompanies the author's personal experience through loss and loneliness. It is a goodbye letter filled with mixed feelings and emotional despair. It travels through the author's mind while he rambles about his choices. He confides with himself about the loss of friends, the miss of family, the hurt of love while choosing an end to his life. "De mim" is the author's message to anyone who has questioned themselves in their darkest moments and have wondered if it is really worth living fore. It’s about that specific moment in life where you feel so misplaced, so angry and lonely that you have to escape from the world and find a path within yourself.

“Asleep” from Paulo Abreu is an experimental and poetic documentary shot in Super 8, about the Capelinhos volcano in the Azorean island of Faial. Also included is some footage of the successive eruptions during 1957 and 1958. Born in Lisbon in 1964, Paulo Abreu is a cinematographer and director, known for Xonor (2000), For Plus- X (2010) and Barba (2011).

“Quatro Horas Descalço” (“Four Hours Barefoot”) from Ico Costa is loosely inspired by a true story that occurred in an isolated village on the mountainous countryside of Portugal. Afonso is a sixteen-year-old boy who, one cold night, kills his abusive father. After the murder he walks for twenty kilometers across the mountains, barefoot, with almost no clothes on, to confess his crime. More than exploring the dimension of the hideous murder, Ico Costa’s film is interested in Afonso’s “bare steps”. Combining the realistic universe of the Dardenne brother’s influence, with the telluric power of Lisandro Alonso’s films, “Four Hours Barefoot”, is a minimalistic reflection about crime and nature. Shot in 16mm, in a contemplative, no dialogue, hand held gripping style, this is an essay about the truth and hardness of the purgatory “road” that leads Afonso into confession. Ico Costa was born in Lisbon in 1983. He studied at the Portuguese National Film School (ESTC), in Lisbon, and at the Universidad del Cine (FUC), in Buenos Aires. In 2011 he was admitted at Le Fresnoy – Studio national des arts contemporains, in France, which he finished with distinction. He directed LIBHAKETI (2011), QUATRO HORAS DESCALÇO (2012), CORRENTE (2013) and ANTERO (2014). His work was shown at several film festivals, such as the Critics' Week of Cannes IFF, Locarno IFF, Rome IFF, Indie Lisboa IFF, Bradford IFF, Durban IFF, Curtas de Vila do Conde ISFF, among others.

“Imaculado” (“Immaculate”) by filmmaker Gonçalo Waddington, is the story within the rural country where a man tries to understand the strange phenomenon that is happening in his body. The old grandmother, the bird in the cage and the almost inhospitable landscape cover him like a fog that allows him no certainties. This film is a fiction about the stories that are created when reality is too harsh to be addressed. Gonçalo Waddington was born on September 25, 1977, in Lisbon, Portugal as Gonçalo Filipe Waddington Marques de Oliveira. He is an actor and writer known for Lusitana Paixão (2003), Fúria de Viver (2002) and Terra Mãe (1998). He has been married to Carla Maciel since 2002. They have two children.

Finally, in Jorge Jácome film “Plutão” (“Pluto”), Pluto is no longer considered a planet. The posters in the classrooms and museum shops were replaced; new objects similar to Pluto will continue to appear. As time goes by, we'll get used to this idea just as we forget an old lover and long for new horizons. Jorge Jácome was born in Viana do Castelo in 1988 and spent his childhood in Macau. He completed his degree in cinema at Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinema as director and editor. In 2009 he took part of the project “Main Trends in Portuguese contemporary cinema”, study about the past ten years of Portuguese filmmaking. In 2011 he had a Fundação da Ciência e Tecnologia scholarship to continue working on the project “Main Trends in Portuguese contemporary cinema”. He won the workshop Le Fresnoy, in the scope of IndieLisboa’11Pluto, under the mentorship of João Pedro Rodrigues and Damien Manivel with the shortfilm Quiet Night.